I need some overclocking advice...

[phill9700]

hi guys<BR>i have had my 1700xp for some time now, but i just received my Corsair XMS 3200 Twinx DDR yesterday and i need some help..<BR>i have managed to get my 3dmark score to nealry 18k, im about 400 points off and im ineed of a few pointers, as i think im doing something wrong..<BR>my cpu is currently set to 204x11 (2254Mhz) with aggressive settings to the cpu, i have the memory set to cas 2 2-2-5 and my agp ap set to 512... my cpu voltage is set to 1.75v i think.. my idle temp is about 42C or so, it goes near to 46C - 48C when under stress i think...<BR>now when i try going any higher than 207fsb, the pc boots, goes through a few tests and then a black screen and then nothing at all. only a reset will bring this beast back to life..<BR>my 9700 pro, stucks when it comes to overclocking, as it will only go up to 373/335 and anything more, crashes or hangs 3dmark 2001se, which really annoys me..<BR>is there anything more i can try? i have tried setting it too 11.5 x 200 and im getting slightly lower scores than what im getting now.. the most i have gotten from the cpu i think is just under 2400Mhz (something like 11.5 x 204 or something near to that).. i want to break this 18k barrer!! please help someone!!! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif" border="0"><BR>another thing, my 'Environment Bump Mapping' seems to only be going at 150fps.. shouldnt it be higher than this? <BR><BR>Addiction : also memory voltage is up to 2.9volts, my agp voltage is at 1.6v, but the agp speed is set to auto. i have slightly older drivers for the graphics card installed and also i only have directx 8.1 installed as both the newer drivers and directx 9 seems to slow it down a bit... agp is set 8x and i have got fast writes enabled in the smartgart tab of the graphics card drivers. Also my north bridge heat sink (standard by the way) seems cool, (i can put my figures on it when its been on for 6 hours straight) and also my memory is also cool, no tempurature coming off of there either..

[phill9700]

i have actually tried running it higher, i think it ran once at 68mhz but now anything that i try, it just dont want to know.. crashes randomly when using it and its really annoying not being able to get those 200 (i got a higher score.. but i cant get no closer.. its so frustrating!!!!).. i think i might have to try some cooling on the north bridge if its not to expensive, i might be able to push it further that way, but im not counting my mhz just yet <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"><BR>thanks for the help guys!!

[DeanLowe]

Damn, over 17K ain't that bad. I can't get over 17K with my system. If you lock the AGP speed at one that's workable for your video card, you can probably get a few MHz more from the FSB. You could also look for faster drivers for the 9700Pro.

[TranceJunkieXL]

DAMN! My highest (no OC) 3DMark was only 13k!<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif" border="0"> <BR>Tell me what you're doing wrong and I'll be doing it wrong as well!<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

[phill9700]

well i have got the agp speed (or frequency whichever you prefer <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"> ) set to auto, so i have no idea if thats a good thing or a bad thing!!<BR>i managed last night to get the fsb up to 208 with a mutliplier of 11, which gave me close to 2.3ghz... i think i was using 1.775v and the ddr voltage was set to 2.77v which i think is a little less than what it actually is..<BR><BR>what drivers are the fastest with the 9700 pro? at the moment, im using the latest drivers with directx 9 which seems to slow it down a bit, but i think the game im waiting to get through is GTA Vice City and that says it requires directx 9 because it uses it or something... <a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.rockstargames.com/vicecity/pc/index.htm">the link is here</a> is might take a little time to load if you use a modem, but otherwise you should be fine.. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

[Ginsu543]

I don't know if this will help you since I have the Geforce4 Ti 4200 and you have a 9700 Pro, but when I raised the AGP Port speed from stock 66 MHz to 80 MHz, I got an extra 400 points on 3DMark2001SE. That's how I broke 13500. I remember someone posting that ATI cards don't tolerate high AGP speeds as well as nVidia cards, but then it might work for you.

[TranceJunkieXL]

Yeah Ginsu, Colin told me that the ATIs tend to freeze when you increase the AGP from 66, but NVidia's love it. He did say I could give it a try, but my system crashed before I could get around to it. You can always give it a shot phill9700.

[DeanLowe]

Which revision of the nForce 2 does your 8RDA+ have?

[Canadian-Guy]

Phil I cant seem to access your scores but you mentioned it crashes in the later tests, try upping your core and memory on your 9700 and turning off all the benchmarks except the game ones. It worked for me and I got a bonus 200 points in the first try (alot for my card)